Post Cataclysm Author's Notes
Firstly, thank you for reading the Cataclysm! This story is one that I have been playing with for more than a year in my head and this year my excitement pushed me to fulfill it. Thank you to the numerous fans that read, shared, commented, PM’d, and put forth their own ideas! A few of those ideas have been used already! Feel free to reach out to me on Facebook, the Battletech discord: Battletech into the Future, X, and even Instagram! All of the support, both big and small has felt incredible!
This event is the attack on New Avalon by the Word of Blake. I needed to dig deep and make the Resurgence of the Word of Blake seem plausible. That thread that wove into this huge labor of love for Battletech was the simple bits of writing from the Jihad era where tens of thousands of personnel in all Word of Blake levels/Shadow Divisions were just MIA, plus the missing Hidden Worlds.
There will be a deep dive into the events that transpired while the Word of Blake was in exile in the Deep Periphery. They make great “bad guys” in a far-too-often morally gray period of storytelling in general.
When I look on other types of major events, such as the current era of the current Battletech IP licensee, they had no idea what they were doing. In rolling out their current era, they wrote it all into one sourcebook and one novel and just washed their hands of it. Blaine Pardoe did an amazing job in his efforts of the novel but, they gave him shit to work with as far as plot points, plot armor, etc.
Seeing how the IP-licensee failed to truly embrace this new era, I learned that lesson from them. Their era change over should have been a real-world yearlong with multiple world-wide events per month/quarter. Each quarter should have been at least one new novel and one new sourcebook. And each quarter should have been a different themed forcepack. January could be RotS, April could be Jade Falcon, July could have been Clan Wolf, and then in October could have been an era themed release. But… We all know the skill level of that lot.
Anyway, learning the lesson from others, Resurgence is designed so fans can enjoy this story for an extended period. Releasing one chapter per week gave a new release for almost the rest of 2025 every Saturday morning.
Cataclysm Part 1 covers the initial attack and the attempt to crush the Federated Suns. War Party explores the recovery efforts as they try to find lost Republic personnel on the opposite side of the Inner Sphere. Finally, Cataclysm Part 2 brings us to a “new normal” for the Inner Sphere. Where for 150 years in game the borders haven’t changed much… Now they are vastly different.
Each part is written in such a way that additional stories can be told as I come up with them. Here are a few examples:
· A story about retaking Barrington
· A story about what they find in Ranford from that crazy Blakist
· A story about the wreckage of the Admiral Michael Saille
· A story about the attempt to find and rescue Lady Joy
· A story about a unit in the thick of the fighting at Phase Line Bravo
· A story about the Kell Hounds realizing they are under attack by the Lyrans and Jade Falcons
· A story about the escape of the Nova Cats from the FWL Clan Protectorate
· More lateral stories about the fighting above New Avalon
· More lateral/expanded stories about fighting on Brunswick
· More lateral/expanded stories about fighting in Ith and Ultron
This is just off the top of my head! There is so much more I have thought of and forgotten and will think of in the future. All of these can be written without impacting the main sequence of events and main characters of the era. In a number of cases I could expand on what main characters are doing.
Similar to needing to have a real explanation to how the Word of Blake remains the same goes for how to actually fight them. Considering the assets at their disposal after decades of unhindered R&D with automated, voluntary, and involuntary labor, no nation in the Inner Sphere has the means to fight them on their own.
Some would say history is doomed to repeat itself. And really it has because decades ago the leaders of the IS were so pompous they refused to flush out and destroy the Word of Blake. Alliances needed to be built to have any semblance of hope. Really, all of them see the writing on the wall: Work together or be destroyed.
Stay tuned for missions and other ways to enjoy the fighting on New Avalon!!!